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Resource Identification for a Biological Collection Information Service in Europe |
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Resource Identification for a Biological Collection Information Service in Europe |
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The Department of Biology of the University of Trieste is one of the main centres for computer-aided studies in the field of Geobotany in Italy. It houses the first National Data Bank for the Italian Flora and Vegetation, under the direction of Prof. S. Pignatti, which was an example of a large database covering the flora of a whole country, without, however, detailed distributional data. Furthermore, the Department has assembled three other data-banks:
a) National Data Bank on the Lichens of Italy with more than 30.000 records. It includes detailed distributional data for all species of lichens known to occur in Italy, plus several additional descriptors. Novel descriptors, such as phytochemical data, are presently being included in the database.
b) Data Bank on the phytogeography of Italian vascular plants, with the computerisation of several thousands distributional ranges. This is a rather innovative type of data bank, including the distributional ranges at world level, organised in a grid of Operational Geographic Units. This will allow for the study of regional variation and help in the identification of centres of biodiversity. The output of the bank is directly connected with programs of automatic mapping, which allows the rapid production of phytogeographic maps, at world level, showing the joint distribution of any set of species deriving from previous ecological or taxonomic studies.
c) Data bank on the Flora of north-eastern Italy (responsible: Prof. L. Poldini), which contains several thousands floristic records from this region. This is an example of a large database including the distribution of all species of a given area within a grid, with additional descriptors attached to each species.
A research team directed by Prof. E. Feoli works exclusively on the production of new and original software for the elaboration of floristic and vegetation data.
The contribution of the department will consist mainly in the active participation in the contacting of steward of databases, with particular reference to data banks with floristic-vegetational purposes and with reference to biochemical descriptors used in lichen taxonomy.
© BioCISE Secretariat. Email: biocise@, FAX: +49 (30) 841729-55
Address: Botanischer Garten und Botanisches Museum Berlin-Dahlem (BGBM), Freie
Universität Berlin, Königin-Luise-Str. 6-8, D-14195 Berlin, Germany